Everybody Skates: Alphonzo Rawls Brings Pop Culture to Skateboarding

“The gist of EverybodySkates is popular culture meets skateboarding,” designer and past H-Street skater Alphonzo Rawls tells me Friday night at his EverybodySkates art show at Space15Twenty in Los Angeles. Rawls has been drumming up support from the likes of Tony Hawk, Chris Cole, and Transworld, and points out how stoked he is to see so many friends in attendance – Jeremy Wray, Antwuan Dixon, and some of the producers from Jackass, to name a few.

“Whether you're into Michael Jackson or not, or skateboarding or not, the juxtaposition of Michael Jackson riding a skateboard is something that anybody can appreciate with a sense of humor,” Alphonzo explains. “The language of humor is something that everybody speaks.”

Rawls linked up with friend and now business partner Harvey Hardwick, who tells me how insane it is to be living in Oceanside and selling T-shirts in Paris because of Instagram. “There were no intentions of starting a brand,” Harvey told me.